1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to information management systems, and more particularly to a system and method of searching for image data stored in a database or other information-bearing medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Digital images may be formed in a variety of ways. The preferred way to obtain digital images of people, places, and objects is through the use of a digital camera. For materials which have already been captured on film, scanning is the preferred method of choice. This latter technique may also be used to capture various forms of art printed in books, magazines, and periodicals.
One form of art which has traditionally been relied on by law enforcement is the artist's sketch, developed based on eye-witness accounts of the facial features of a suspect. Recently, these sketches (commonly referred to as “mug shots”) have been converted into digital image files for presentation on a computer. These files are usually in bit map, GIF, or JPEG format and therefore have large memory requirements. Attempts to use compression method to decrease these requirements have proven inadequate and result in degrading image quality.
Storing images in the aforementioned manner also makes them very difficult to search through. Similar to paging through a book of mugshot photographs, witnesses or law enforcement personnel trying to determine the identify of a suspect must still observe the images one at a time. This becomes increasingly difficult or impossible as the number of digital images stored in the system increases.
In view of the foregoing considerations, it is apparent that there is a need for a system and method for generating image data with vastly reduces memory requirements. There is also a need for a system and method which encodes images in a way that will enable them to be searched faster and more efficiently than other methods which have been proposed.